Showing 71-80 of 150 results
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Protect your photographs from spies
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/05/2014
» Beware the Cloud, or at least Google+. I took a picture with my phone recently, something I don’t do all that often, and happened to visit Google+ soon after. The first thing I saw was the photo I’d just taken. This was the first time I discovered that any photos I take are by default sent immediately to my Google+ area. You would think this was a setting in the Android G+ app but it is instead in the Photos apps. Google’s default push is to fully open up everything you do to Google, so be careful what setting you have and how you use your camera. To be fair the photo was in a “protected” area but we all know how well that kind of protection remains in the open-to-the-world-plus-their-dog environment we live in.
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Passing the hacker hat
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/04/2014
» A “black hat” is a skilled hacker who tends to lurk in the background, rarely gets caught and is a master at breaking into systems, programs and data. These people have been represented in movies and are usually considered shady characters. There are, of course, rewards in being skilled in this field — both monetarily and in terms of underground notoriety — but there are also risks, such as retaliation from those that have been hacked and the continual threat of government agencies tracking them down. Lesser known but becoming more so are those called “grey hats”, who often straddle the line of legality. And as a recent conference showed, you can be rewarded for finding vulnerabilities in operating systems and application codes. There is a growing market for skilled grey hats, who are used to find holes in social media platforms and all manner of other products, ranging from smartphones to major systems. Government departments will even hire ex-black hats to secure their systems against attack. Major corporations do the same thing. So if you are a budding young hacker, you can potentially make up to $250,000 (8 million baht) if you find a zero-day problem in iOS or around half that for a Windows problem. The zero-day issue was recently represented in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.
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Smart shopping
Life, James Hein, Published on 09/04/2014
» I have been looking at tablets. It took me a long time to decide on a smartphone and when to buy it, and while my first was an O2, the first one I was happy with was the Galaxy S2. I now have the S3 and will be upgrading to the S5 probably a month or so after it is released to avoid the introductory high prices. Picking a first tablet is turning out to be a much harder exercise. The unit must have a good screen but also support for a memory card which cuts out everything Apple makes. Good battery life is essential as is light weight and this covers a good range of products. For the moment I have my eye on the Note 10.1 2014 model, but that could change over the next couple of months as new devices enter the market.
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Heartbleed causing heartache
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/04/2014
» One of the hottest topics in the computing world over the past two weeks has been a problem with the security of OpenSSL named Heartbleed. The short version is that this popular security layer has had a bug for the last couple of years that allowed people to grab not only information from a computer, but also passwords and decryption keys. The fix is to go to the OpenSSL site download and apply the latest version, anything past 1.0.1f, from here, www.openssl.org/related/binaries.html. If your Android phone is 4.1.x, then download a Heartbleed detector from the Play Store and check your exposure. For the technically minded, the problem is a missing bounds check so that the attacker can grab 64KB of memory. There are code samples on the net if you want more details. I suspect that system administrators have been busy all over the world patching their machines, generating new public and private keys and notifying all users to change their passwords on affected systems. I also suspect that there will be administrators and users who will not take any steps at all, either due to laziness or hubris. There is strong evidence that you should change all your important passwords at places like banks.
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Happy birthday, Gmail
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/04/2014
» This month Gmail turned 10. According to legend, it was created in the free time of Google engineers, who were allocated 20% of their time for personal projects. In those days there was Microsoft (who managed to lose all of my Hotmail emails one year; I’ve never touched it since), Yahoo! and AOL, making Gmail’s rise from nothing quite an achievement. Gmail introduced threaded mail, more data storage and allowed users to send larger emails. They also introduced an “undo send” option, long-term storage of emails, better searching and didn’t delete your account if you remained inactive for a while. It handled spam decently and worked on almost every browser. Microsoft responded by charging for extra space. No wonder it is now the top free email service, at least according to some measures.
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How safe is your data?
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/02/2014
» Researchers from Rutgers University have developed a smartphone tool that tracks how often applications track them. The app essentially monitors other applications and logs when they get location data and transmits it. The results indicated that lots of applications, sometimes those where it was not expected, grabbed location data and passed it along. Some apps will notify the user but the research found that others are not so forthcoming. The researchers concluded that Android permissions are not an effective method for disclosing and consenting for location data access. They also found that the flashing GPS icon is largely ignored or not registered by users. You have been warned. You can find the full report here: http://bit.ly/NrTyQN
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It’s now or never
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/03/2014
» I was having coffee with my son recently and he became frustrated because Facebook wasn’t providing the answer he was looking for fast enough. The new generation wants their information now, not in five minutes, but now. This also supports my theory that in general they are willing to accept the first answer that is provided rather than cross check the facts. This dependency on instant information means that manipulation by the media and other groups becomes a lot easier. Not sure where this is all going to end up.
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How not to be a Glasshole
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/02/2014
» The growing use of smart glasses technology has led organisations like Google to issue a list of do’s and don’ts when using the devices so as to avoid being a “Glasshole”.
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Phone disappoints galactic expectations
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/03/2014
» So it appears the new Galaxy S5 was well overhyped in the rumour mill. No 5.3-inch. screen, but instead a 5.1-inch one. No super-high resolution, and considering it’s slightly larger screen (Galaxy S4 was 5-inch), there were actually fewer pixels per inch and neither was it, as rumours suggested, bezel free. No 20MP camera but instead 16MP and not 64-bit but at least quad core. The Galaxy S5 does not have a metal case, but it is waterproof — up to one metre for 30 minutes which will help those with slippery fingers who take their smartphones to the toilet.
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The death of the PC?
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/03/2014
» According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the PC market contracted in 2013. Along with Gartner, IDC predicts a continued contraction until at least 2018. Reasons include the popularity of tablets, smartphones, a slowing world economy, people sticking with their PCs longer and operating system issues. Some are predicting the death of the PC, but I disagree, because what is the alternative? In a work environment and even for many home users, the PC still reigns. Other devices are good toys, but the PC is still the base.
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